Matt's Latest Posts

If you have never used DOS yourself, you may find it hard to believe that anyone ever did. Jumping in and getting started with DOS is difficult even for computer-savvy individuals because DOS uses an entirely different form of interface than modern operating systems. Everything today is a GUI (Graphical User Interface). But you’ll find […]

It wasn’t so long ago that tabbed browsing didn’t exist. If you wanted to open a website but you didn’t want to leave the website you were viewing you had only one option – open a new window. Tabbed browsing was first made popular by Firefox, and it has caught on. Now every browser uses […]

Most computers from PC vendors come with certain pre-configured factory settings which are important to the computer’s operation. This is particularly true of laptops, which usually have special function buttons, and touch screen computers, which require special drivers in order to function. Of course, a computer from a factory also has default Windows settings and […]

Skype is one of the easiest ways to video chat with others across the globe for free. Using Skype is easy, and most video calls provide solid quality and connection stability. So many use Skype video calls for business, while others might use them to keep in touch with friends and family across the globe. […]

Strategy games. They tend to be less glorious than shooters, and they tend to have narratives which are paper thin when compared to role playing games. What they do provide, however, is the opportunity to creatively flex your brain muscle. You are given a toolbox of possible strategies and tactics – which you choose are up to you. There […]

Windows 7 has been very well reviewed. Most technology websites have been happy with the new release of Window 7, particularly when compared to the disastrous Windows Vista. One of the reasons why Windows 7 has gone over better than Vista is compatibility. Windows 7 is a less drastic departure from Vista than Vista was from XP, […]

Pay-per-click advertising through services like Google Adsense can make your blog profitable, but it usually isn’t the most efficient way to bring in money from a blog. The problem with pay-per-click is that the payout for each click is simply too low. The advertisement you show may be for a product which cost hundreds or […]

The roots of of massively multiplayer online games, or MMOs, are deep in the realm of subscription based gameplay. While today the idea of charging a subscription fee for a game seems cliche, it was revolutionary when MMOs began to gain popularity roughly a decade ago. Everquest, while not the first MMO, was the genre’s […]

The Netbook craze has died down a bit, but that’s hardly surprising. Netbooks were something of a revelation, and when they first started to become available their popularity exploded. This is now starting to level out – having taken about 20% of the mobile PC market – and they are also starting to mature significantly. […]

Synthetic benchmarks are a great tool for finding out how well your computers can play games. They provide a baseline which allows you to compare how upgrades and changes to your computer have improved or degraded performance. Synthetic benchmarks can also be used as a point of comparison to other systems with similar specifications, which […]

The Internet is a dangerous place. Viruses, worms, Trojan Horses – there seems to be all manner of threats just waiting to spring on your computer and cause trouble. One way of protecting yourself is, of course, through the use of antivirus program. An antivirus can detect a problem and quarantine the file which is attempting […]

The animated .GIF is a strange form of expression. It is only twenty or thirty frames, completely devoid of sound, repeating in an endless loop. Yet there is something intoxicating about an animated .GIF, like staring into the eyes of a hypnotist. Creating your own animated .GIF from a movie can be a lot of […]

Internet Explorer 8 is Microsoft’s best web browser yet. Unlike some previous versions, Internet Explorer 8 is actually competitive with Firefox, and since it comes standard with Windows 7, its popularity will only grow as people switch to Microsoft’s new operating system. The improvements made to Internet Explorer 8 doesn’t mean however that it is […]

Google Desktop is a great tool for social networking. The Twitter and Facebook gadgets allow you to keep up to date with your friends without even having to launch a full web browser. Other Google Desktop gadgets, like custom clocks and computer performance meters, just flat-out look cool. But Google Desktop isn’t just a novelty. […]

There are many tools that promise to optimize or speed up your Windows computer, but how can you make sure the software did what it promised? Confirmation bias can make it very, very hard to simply “eyeball” your computer’s speed because you’ll usually want to confirm that your efforts made an impact. If you have no objective way of knowing how fast your computer is you won’t be able to figure out which optimizations work and which don’t.